SD Contest Logger on GNU/Linux

Serge Stroobandt, ON4AA

Copyright 2014–2019, licensed under Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

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SD Contest Logger

SD by EI5DI

SD by Paul O’Kane, EI5DI, is an easy, neat little contest logging program. Originally known as Super Duper, the program serves particularly well in DXpeditions and contesting. It features a wide variety of supported HF contests, both international and especially regional. Especially in the latter category, SD earned quite a reputation. There is also SDV, a version specifically for VHF contesters, which works similarly. Both programs are free as in beer, but unfortunately not yet open source. Being closed source software, SD & SDV are threatened with extinction.

Wine

All what is needed to run SD on GNU/Linux is wine, a compatibility layer for running Windows™ applications. Applications under wine run at full speed without requiring any CPU emulation. Microsoft Windows™ is not required. trick is wineconsole

PlayOnLinux

PlayOnLinux is a front-end to make wine easier to use. SD will be installed on a separate PlayOnLinux virtual Windows™ drive (not shown).

Here is how to install playonlinux using the command line on a Debian-derived GNU/Linux distribution such as (X)Ubuntu or Linux Mint:

$ sudo apt-get install playonlinux

Instead of PlayOnLinux, one can also use the commercial Codeweavers CrossOver package. A virtual drive is called “bottle” then.

Get SD

the installation file sdsetup.exe

$ cd Downloads
$ wget -c http://www.ei5di.com/sd/sdsetup.exe

Install with PlayOnLinux

SD will be installed on a separate PlayOnLinux virtual Windows™ drive, called sd. Please, note that Linux paths are case sensitive! located $HOME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/sd/drive_c/SD

If CrossOver is used, that would be $HOME/.cxoffice/sd/dosdevices/c:/SD.

Scripts

SD happens to be special in two ways:

Even though SD was designed to run on Windows™, SD happens to be just a text mode program. Hence, SD.EXE needs to be executed with the console user interface (CUI) wineconsole instead of plain wine. The shortcuts provided by PlayOnLinux will not work.
Furthermore, SD.EXE and SDCHECK.EXE will only find the template files when they are started from within their SD subdirectory.

For that reason, it comes in handy to create two bash scripts to start these applications.

Contents of the run-sd script:

#!/bin/bash
cd $HOME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/sd/drive_c/SD
wineconsole SD.EXE

Contents of the run-sdcheck script:

#!/bin/bash
cd $HOME/.PlayOnLinux/wineprefix/sd/drive_c/SD
wineconsole SDCHECK.EXE

Ofcourse, be sure to make both scripts executable:

$ chmod +x run-sd run-sdcheck

Running SD

Running the SD applications has now been made easy. Simply execute the bash scripts.

$ ./run-sd

The first time you launch these applications, you might want to right-click on the console window. This allows one to increase the font (e.g. 24 pt) as well as the buffer (83×28) and window size (82×27) properties. An SD screenshot is shown below.

SD running the 80m SSB ON Contest on Xubuntu LTS 14.04

An explanation about how SD functions, is beyond the scope of this article. Please, consult the manual for that. For now, end SD simply by typing «END».

After a contest run the other script with:

$ ./run-sdcheck

Caveat

Bandmaps is the only function I did not manage to get working under wineconsole. The reason is that the function key F10 is reserved in wineconsole. I have not found any way yet to override this. (Let me know if you do!) I also wrote SD’s author Paul O’Kane, EI5DI about this problem. This happened early 2015, right after when SD went for a couple of years from freeware to payware.

Desktop icons

It is often a hassle to find the application icons in wine. Here they are, should you need them.

SD icon SDCHECK icon

Manual

Here is the SD manual.

SDV on GNU/Linux

The VHF version of this contest logger, SDV, will install in the same manner on GNU/Linux. Visit the very interesting web site of George Smart, M1GEO, for a demonstration.

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